


Touch the Sound

by TashaVick87



Series: Two of a Kind [2]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: And love, Angst, Comedy, Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, and also...smut, and gerri and roman being adorably gerri and roman, but also so much softness, dark themes in this one, the tags would be more precise if I could put them in without spoiling the story which...I can't, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29202537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TashaVick87/pseuds/TashaVick87
Summary: Gerri sets her phone down on the kitchen counter, knowing well he didn’t believe a word she said.As she walks over to the huge bay windows, she tries to take a deep breath of the winter air, but her throat closes up, refuses to cooperate. Much as she tries, she can’t stop the tears from falling, arms wrapping around her middle, hands fisting into the fabric of her sweater.Her legs can’t hold her up any longer so she slowly let herself drop to the floor, hugs her knees to her chest, unable to remember a time she was this terrified.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Series: Two of a Kind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110701
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	Touch the Sound

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second installment of the Two of a Kind series and it takes place a few months after the end of the first installment - The Aim Was Song. If you haven't read that one a lot of what goes on in this one won't make sense, so you probably need to give that one a go first.
> 
> This one was much harder to write, emotionally speaking, but it kept nagging me until I typed it all out. I hope you like it, and also feel free to let me know if you have any prompts for future stories within this particular gerri x roman universe :)
> 
> Once again I decided not to separate the story into chapters, this one has one main part and an epilogue I was originally going to leave for the next oneshot, but I realized the fic needed extra closure, so epilogue it is! :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think :)

’’Roman, I swear to you, go for the hair one more time and I will knee you in the junk. I know you watched Legally Blonde, because Gerri and I made you watch it last month and you know it isn't supposed to get wet!’’

He is giggling at a furious Tabitha as he runs away from the side of the pool, so she wouldn’t get ideas about pushing him in.

His phone rings and he bounces over to the lounger to get it.

‘‘Hey, Gerri! Guys, it’s Gerri!’’

He turns the screen towards Tabitha and Jessie, her girlfriend, and they both wave enthusiastically.

‘‘Hey Gerr, we’re at our place, trying out the newly-installed indoor swimming facilities. Now that I have you though, mind telling your man-child of a husband to get out of my hair, literally. I had it done this morning - that new perm method I’ve been telling you about and it’s fabulous - but he seems intent on ruining it like the baby that he is!’’

Gerri observes the trio with fondness from Julia’s apartment in Chicago, wishing she could be with them.

Her and Tabitha had gotten really close since the whole marriage thing came out, and Roman and Gerri have been having regular double date and movie nights with her and Jessie every week for the past three months.

‘‘Rome, didn’t I leave specific instructions for you when I left, hm? Jessie is pregnant, honey, you upset Tabitha you’ve upset Jessie, you upset Jessie, you upset our future godchild. You don’t want to do that, now do you?’’

‘‘The rate he’s going, you’re gonna be a single godmother because I will drown him in this pool!’’, Tabitha exclaims.

Roman is sufficiently chastised and smiles repentantly at the girls.

‘‘Sorry. It’s all the excess energy, Gerr, you’ve been away for three days, you know how I get!’’

Tabitha holds in a laugh.

‘‘This one here! Thank god for you Gerri, he would have died a half-virgin or something. I couldn’t get him to kiss me without nearly gagging, but you’re away for five minutes he’s almost leaking.’’

‘‘Tabs, what the fuck, have a little filter, our better halves are listening!’’, he mock sighs in exasperation, turning the phone back towards himself.

‘‘Sorry, Gerr, we’ll behave. All three of us!’’, Tabitha calls out.

‘‘Hey, I haven’t done anything?’’ Jessie adds from her lounger, balancing an ice cream Sunday on her still flat two months along belly.

‘‘I know very well how you feel, Jess. It’s weird having to be the only sane one with those two around, isn’t it? It’s easier when I’m there to balance the scales.’’, Gerri says.

‘‘Alright, alright, we said we’d behave’’, Roman promises, grabbing a towel and walking back to the living room area to talk to her in private.

‘‘Sorry, I got carried away.’’

He sighs as he leans back against the cushions of the couch.

’’The excess energy thing is not a joke, I’ve seriously contemplated going for a run.’’

‘‘Please don’t take Molly with you, you know she hates running just as much as you, it’ll just make both of you miserable.’’

‘‘Oh, don’t worry, since the queen of the castle is gone for the week, the princess is as miserable as the king, look!’’

He turns the phone to the dog curled up in a ball in the corner of Tabitha’s huge living room, her favorite toy under her chin. The pink Simon the Cat plushy is already worn and Gerri notes she’ll have to get her another one soon. If she can get away with it, that is, Molly had become so attached to it.

‘‘She is not letting go of the toy mommy gave her, not even while she eats now, she carries it around for walks, too. The other day at the office, she was so fucking mopey, she brought down the mood of the entire floor. I had people coming in from Payroll trying to cheer her up, nothing fucking worked. When it was time to go home I thought I was gonna have to carry her.’’

Molly had taken to both of them very quickly but Roman wasn’t blind to the way she padded after Gerri happily every time she saw her, clinging to her, how she watched her every move when she was within her sight. He could hardly blame her, he did the same thing. So, he had a buddy with whom to pine after his wife now.

‘‘Hey Molly, hey girl.’’, she raises her voice to get the dog’s attention and immediately, Molly lifts her head, abandons her toy and starts running straight at Roman.

‘‘No, no, no, Molly, stop, stop, ST-’’ but it’s too late and Molly has trampled all over him in her eagerness to get to the source of Gerri’s voice, slobbering all over his phone.

‘‘Molls, no, come on, I just got that phone, it’s not drool-proof.’’, he tries not to giggle but the situation is just too hilarious.

‘‘She is getting so big so quickly.’’, Gerri muses fondly. He sees her move through Julia’s apartment to the kitchen to grab her coffee mug.

‘‘I miss you.’’, Roman all but whispers , trying to keep it together. It has been less than three days of her being away at Julia’s helping her with a case, and he still has two days more to go without her.

‘‘I know, Rome, I miss you, too.’’ He hears a hitch in her breath, surprised at the amount of emotions she was showing, she would usually laugh his silliness away to get them back on track, turn it into their usual back-and-forth.

‘‘I fuckin’ hate it I couldn’t get away, I have no idea how that schedule turned out so packed with like super important stuff, I should have a word with my assistant, maybe she could free up the these next two days and I can meet up with you?’’

Gerri somehow seems bothered by his suggestion, and he frowns at seeing her almost sour expression.

‘‘Or not, you know, I know that as much as this is a work matter for Julia it’s also a mother-daughter bonding thing. And between her and Laura, you said she’s the tougher nut to crack, I need to conserve my strength for next month.’’

He cannot believe it’s almost December. It feels like it was days, not months, since the gala, since they told everyone about their marriage. He smiles at the thought of finally getting to officially meet with Laura and Julia. He is scared shitless, of course, but excited as well.

‘‘It’s just that, it’s been really busy here these past few days, I feel like a headless chicken.’’, Gerri says, and he observes how her fingers are tracing the rim of the mug, twitching ever so slightly against the porcelain.

‘‘But I promise you, I can’t wait to come back. Two more days. It’ll fly by, honey. You can bother Tabitha, I’ll text her and tell you to go easy on you.’’, she jokes, smiling, but Roman can see it’s not quite reaching her eyes. He tries to quell the nausea rising in his stomach, and smiles back.

‘‘Everything okay, Gerr? You seem…I don’t know really. I thought I met all the Gerris. Hangry upset, happy, orgasmic.’’, he winks then, trying to disperse the already dark mood draping itself over the conversation. ’’I don’t think I know this one. I mean, you would tell me if something was wrong, right?’’

She runs a hand through her hair and takes a sip of her coffee before she smiles encouragingly at him.

‘‘I am completely fine, honey, no need to worry. I can’t wait to see you, and I can’t wait to see Molly. Laura bought her a new squeaky toy and she made me promise to give it to her. The thing sounds infuriatingly annoying, but hey, my firstborn wants video proof of the gift being presented to her pup sister.’’

He looks at Molly, eagerly listening to her mistress’s voice, head on his lap, panting heavily, dribbling all over his swimming trunks.

‘‘I have to go, honey, Julia is taking me to lunch and I still have to wash my hair and pick out my outfit.’’

‘‘Okay, I’ll let you get to it. Talk tonight?’’

She makes a face and he already knows he’s not going to like the answer.

‘‘I’m meeting some old friends for drinks tonight, it could be late by the time I get back. Oh, and tomorrow I am going to have to go dark the entire day for Julia’s proceedings, it’ll be a little hectic. Then, I have the jet set to go at five am the day after tomorrow. I have to get to the office early, these few days away will have stacked up my schedule like crazy. I think I can practically hear Liz going stir crazy fending off all the calls.’’

He swallows past a ball of bile in his throat and nods.

‘‘Alrighty then, you have fun and we shall text tomorrow, my jabberwocky slayer.’’

She laughs at the term and nods.

‘‘That we shall, kind sir. Love you.’’

‘‘Love you too.’’

* * *

Gerri sets her phone down on the kitchen counter, knowing full well he didn’t believe a word she said.

As she walks over to the huge bay windows, she tries to take a deep breath of the icy air, but her throat closes up, refuses to cooperate. Much as she tries, she can’t stop the tears from falling, arms wrapping around her middle, hands fisting into the fabric of her sweater.

Her legs can’t hold her up any longer so she slowly let herself drop to the floor, hugs her knees to her chest, unable to remember a time she was this terrified.

* * *

‘‘When I said fix it, Carl, I didn’t mean fix it in three years, I meant fix it yesterday, what part of this is not fucking clicking for you?!’’

He is shouting but he can’t find it in himself to care, acutely aware of the curious faces of the staff turning to look at him through the glass walls of the office.

He had come in on the rest of his day off, unable to focus around Tabitha and Jessie, not wanting to ruin their day too. He doesn’t know why he thought he’d be able to focus better in the office.

‘‘Why are you all still doing staring at me? Let’s go!!!’’

Carl hightails it out of the office, taking the rest of the team with him. Roman can clearly hear him bitching under his breath and puts a pin in that future relocation to Indonesia as something to deal with later.

‘‘Karolina, a quick word. Please.’’

She turns to him, tablet in hand.

‘‘I um…’’, he rubs his hands together, then rubs his palms against the fabric of his pants, getting rid of the sweat.

‘‘Rome, is everything okay? You’ve really not been yourself today.’’

The urge to have an even bigger temper tantrum is so powerful, and yet somehow- probably through all the times Gerri helped him through his previous bouts of nerves - he manages to calm down enough to gather his thoughts.

‘‘Is Gerri okay, I mean, does she seem okay to you?’’

He sees clearly that he’s surprised her by asking, but the way she looks away from him, sets her tablet down and rounds the coffee table to sit down on the couch, he knows he was right. Something was going on.

‘‘I don’t know anything for certain, but I have noticed her jitters. She’s been distracted the couple of days before she flew to Chicago. She hasn’t been herself. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s not visible to outsiders. You and me, I guess we noticed because we know her.’’

‘‘What do I fucking do, Karolina? We Facetimed yesterday and this fucking cold gut feeling wouldn’t let me be. If she’s hurting in any way, how am I supposed to help if she won’t let me?’’

He runs a hand across his face, feeling Molly’s gentle presence, nudging him with her nose, and he bends down to pet her. She climbs onto the couch and gently lays her head onto his lap.

He tries to let her quiet breaths soothe him.

Karolina reaches out a hand to grasp his, squeezing comfortingly, and he lets the warmth of her help. It wasn’t Gerri, but in the moment he will take anything he can get.

‘‘Take it easy, Rome. It might be a thing with the girls, something she is still having trouble sharing with anyone else, a reflex that makes her act like she is still alone in all her problems. Much as you like to think she just has it together 24/7…no one is that strong. Just as you felt on unsteady legs when you first got married, so was she, just because she’s older doesn’t change that fact.’’, she says softly. ‘‘But whatever you do, you just have to listen to her, let her come to you, never be on the offensive.’’, she finishes, her gentle eyes calming him further, his stomach settling.

Then he remembers he hadn’t eaten lunch, and it was nearing clocking out time.

‘‘I’m sorry, I’m keeping you, Luke is probably waiting for you.’’

Karolina and Gerri had it set in stone that on Wednesdays they had date night with their husbands and that their assistants were not allowed to put anything past five pm onto their rosters. This was the first date night of their own he and Gerri missed in three months.

‘‘Oh, no, Luke’s at his parents’ this week, something about their plumbing and the basement - I wasn’t really paying attention - when he starts talking about home projects I am programmed to tune out.’’, she laughs lightly.

‘‘So, you’re free for dinner? Me and Molls could use the company?’’

‘‘Sure. Should we call ahead and pick something up on the way?’’

‘‘Sounds good. Meet you at the elevators, we’ll figure out what to get then?’’

She nods and heads to her office to pack up and he gets Molly’s things ready. Feeling a bit lighter, he leaves the office, the dog padding next to him. He mulls over Karolina’s words, realizing just how right she was.

* * *

‘‘Mom, I’m off now, my friends are waiting, are you going to be okay getting yourself into town?’’, Julia asks, Gerri in the guest room, picking out her outfit for the evening.

Julia enters the room, dressed in a pink and gray camo print tuxedo and Gerri holds back a laugh at her daughter’s defiance of anything resembling a fashion trend. Julia was always her little salmon child, swimming against the current.

‘‘I’m a little rusty, sweetie, but I figure I’ll manage, I did just fine these past few days, didn’t I? You have fun with your friends.’’, she smiles at her daughter, accepts a kiss on the cheek, hears the door shut after her. She is trying to focus on making her hand stop shaking, turns to fetch her drink from the dresser.

If Roman were there, he would know something was wrong if he saw she was having whiskey. She feels she has to, nothing hits her in the guts quite like her most hated choice of liquor, and right now, she needs the harshness to set her straight. She could use a night off from the pins and needles she feels she is sitting on.

As she gets in her rental she thinks she’s glad she picked that mode of transport. If she was being chauffeured it would give her too much free time to start thinking and over-thinking and she knows that is the worst thing she could do right now.

This way, she doesn’t notice the nausea creeping in - much - as she focuses on the road, but also failing to notice the car right behind her, which then keeps following her to her destination.

* * *

Karolina leaves at nine, and Roman can’t help but be grateful for not being alone for at least a few hours, he doesn’t think the utter dread in his every fiber would let him calm down enough to eat anything.

They had steered clear of the heavier topics instead playing with Molly for a bit and then had their dinner and watched a movie.

However, now that he is alone, he feels the resounding emptiness of the penthouse like a dead weight on his chest and he starts stripping to get in the shower, needing to warm himself up. He thinks he may be in some kind of shock.

Before he steps under the shower, he hears his phone trill from the bedroom, and he jogs over to it, hoping Gerri was home early and was maybe in the mood for a Facetime chat before she turned in.

What he sees on the screen instead almost makes him hyperventilate as he stalks over to the bar, reaching for every single bottle of vodka in the thing.

* * *

He doesn’t know why Tabitha is there, only knows that his head is hurting like a bitch, as she is opening the curtains letting the gray light of a late November morning in.

He turns to his side, sees a washbasin full of vomit on the floor next to the bed and the nightstand lined with several empty bottles of Grey Goose.

‘‘Fuck…what the fuck happened yesterday?’’

As Tabitha settles next to him on the bed, hands him a glass of water and two Tylenol, it starts coming back to him. He quickly hands her the glass back, reaches for the washbasin, promptly feeling the burn of the vodka ripping his throat apart.

* * *

‘‘Care to share, Ro? What the fuck is happening? You called, completely wasted, talking absolute fucking nonsense at like four am. And you can thank Jess for making me check up on you, by the way, I was pissed off. Then I had to force you into bed and sit with you so you wouldn’t choke on your own puke. You’re lucky I decided to wait until you explained yourself to call Gerri. She would have been so worried, Ro, what the hell?’’

Hearing her name, something coils in his ribcage, snapping and angry, and he jumps out of bed, reaching for the glass of water, draining it.

‘‘Don’t mention her, just don’t…I gotta-…I have to take a shower.’’

He leaves a confused Tabitha behind, strips and lets an icy jet of water beat against the sore muscles of his back, leaning his forehead against the tiles. He refuses to let the tears fall, but it seems he has no say in the matter, glad for the water hiding them.

Heartbreak was really a palpable piece of shit, wasn’t it?

* * *

Gerri wakes that morning with a vile taste in the back of her throat, the whiskey of the night before making a resurging comeback, and she has to take long deep breaths to settle her stomach.

The vibrations in her entire body are setting her off course and she knows she has to set out an exact, precise schedule of steps from the moment her feet hit the carpet or she wasn’t going to make it.

Bathroom, toothbrush, shower, skincare, the whole nine yards. Breakfast – or at least fake having breakfast – all the while avoiding Julia’s questions carefully and skillfully as the seasoned CEO she is.

She finishes her makeup and takes another long look at herself in the bathroom mirror. Makes a pointed effort to obliterate all thoughts of Roman from her mind.

* * *

He comes out of the bathroom and sees Tabitha still where he left her, in the middle of the bed, this time holding his phone.

‘‘You didn’t change your password. I had to check, I had to know what the fuck happened.’’

He shrugs, drains the second glass of water he sees on the dresser. She must have refilled it for him.

He tries not to focus on the image on the screen, but no matter what he does, every time it blinks it flashes behind his eye lids. An HD photo of Gerri having drinks with a man, smiling, the man holding her hand.

‘‘Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize what happened. Now, if I could have my phone back, I have a company to run.’’

‘‘Rome, I…I don’t think this is what it is. Or maybe it is I don’t know but…I know this man.’’

His head snaps up, and the pity on her face makes him feel worse. Because if she thinks this could be worse than Gerri potentially having an affair…he has no idea what it could be.

‘‘What the fuck are you talking about?’’, he asks, knowing he is being a dick, but decides he really can’t be bothered to care. Not when his whole world feels like it’s crashing down around him.

‘‘He’s a lawyer. He handled my parents’ divorce.’’

And that’s how Roman realizes that apparently, even hell has a basement.

* * *

He gets to the office but isn’t quite aware how he does it. He thinks maybe Tabitha helped, since Molly is there, too, and he doesn’t remember being the one to get all her stuff ready.

He watches Molly lightly chew on the ear of that raggedy pink cat monstrosity, occasionally sighing sadly into the fabric of her doggy bed.

He blacks out the glass walls of the office, reclines back in his leather chair, hoping Karolina doesn’t come in to check on him. The rumors of his crappy mood are probably making the rounds heavily, he thinks. Though, the staff is hardly going to be able to tell this bad mood from all the other shitty days he had when Gerri was away.

He is turning it over in his mind like a prism, trying to get even a shred of light through it, make him see any reason, make him understand –

But when his eyes land on the photograph of Gerri on his desk (he refuses to believe he is one of those husbands now, but here we are) it’s like a reset button has been pressed and clarity floods him.

He grabs the frame, slides a finger gently across the outline of her face. He feels like this particular day, and the instant he snapped that photo of her will be one of the hall of fame moments in his memory for all eternity.

* * *

_‘‘Come on, Gerr, just one. Tabitha didn’t get me this fuckin’ thing for nothing?’’_

_She frowns at him from their bed, still under the sheets, her body fighting the biggest hangover ever. She was going to have to train her liver better if she is going to keep up in the future._

_She smiles at him, shaking her head. Where does he get the energy to be up so early, she thinks to herself, observing him play with his birthday present, a vintage Canon camera. While completely naked. She feels a heat tug in the pit of her stomach and she has to cross her legs tightly under the sheets, has to focus on conquering the hangover. Instead, all that happens is the silk combined with her overheated skin causes her to almost moan into the pillow._

_She gathers enough wits about her to put up a front._

_‘‘Rome, we live in a penthouse in NY city. I feel like there are better views from our terrace that are worth taking pictures of. Now leave me alone, the headache from last night is still very much present, and you, pointing a potential flash in my direction - not helping.’’_

_She smiles as she says it, buries her face into the crook of her arm, still hoping her weak nay-saying was a strong enough deterrent._

_The night before they were at Tabitha’s place. She had insisted on hosting an intimate post-birthday birthday party for him, and decided to gift him the camera. He was actually more than touched; Gerri knew it, unaccustomed as he was to being given genuinely thoughtful things._

_‘‘Gerr, look, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way’’, he says, setting the camera aside, getting into bed, pressing his face into the tender skin of her arm, fingers delving beneath the covers, caressing her sides, her warm waist, meandering down towards her buttocks, squeezing gently. Then they change course, sliding slowly, purposefully towards the apex of her thighs, finally cupping between her legs._

_On an exhale, Gerri turns into the touch, her legs automatically gripping his hand, her back to him._

_‘‘Not fair, Rome. You know we have only two hours before we have to be ready for the office.’’, she says as she rolls her hips into his probing fingers, the hot liquid of her arousal coating them quickly._

_‘‘This is a proven hangover cure for you, you know that. Now come on, let me make you feel good, and then let me capture the post-orgasmic bliss. I promise I won’t put the photo up anywhere unless you approve.’’_

_She laughs into her pillow, but he transforms the sound into a deep moan, a whisper of a breath caught in the back of her throat, and he can feel its vibrations at her neck, where he presses soft, lingering kisses, bites at the skin, soothes it with his tongue._

_Soon he is three fingers inside of her, her arm wound around his neck, turning to him, seeking out his lips, her tongue hot and needy._

_She then reaches behind to grasp him in hand, pulls away from his fingers and takes them both by surprise as she guides him into herself._

_‘‘Fuck, Gerri, you feel so good’’, he stammers out, hips bucking hard into her, the slick, velvety heat of her almost too much for him to bear. But then, she finds that rhythm and that pressure that always works so well for them, lifts her right leg , lets him pull it backwards onto his thigh, and he thinks he might just die in this bed on this lovely Monday morning. And he would be so very okay with that._

_‘‘Oh god, Rome, don’t stop’’, she pleads, her voice almost teary, and there is nothing he wouldn’t do for her then – though that doesn’t differ much from any other moment of his life with her._

_He slides his hand to her front, cups her, massages her clit softly, circular motions feather light and persistent at once, and she is pressing down on his hand with hers, body rocking backwards onto him, then forwards onto their joined hands._

_’’God, I love you so much’’, he breathes out, pumping into her, biting at the flushed skin of her neck, her hair curtaining against his shoulder as she turns to kiss him again, swallowing his moans._

_‘‘Oh, fuck, I’m-’’_

_She bends forward harshly, the wave of pleasure hitting her almost violently and the change of angle triggers something in him. Suddenly, he is grasping her around the waist, pulling her body back into himself, feeling her ride out the ripples of her orgasm by building up his own, her thighs squeezing around his cock in that trademark Gerri way she knows will take him through the stratosphere and back._

_As he comes, he swims in his own pleasure through the feel of her fingers combing through his hair, her lips trailing a gentle path across his forehead, his cheekbones, his eyes, finally reaching his lips, as she arches backward to him._

_She takes a deep breath as they manage to calm their heartbeats._

_He slips out of her gently, his cock twitching at the tiny moan she lets out at the feeling. He lies on top of her then, lips trailing across her flushed chest._

_‘‘Good morning Mr. Kellman.’’, she says, breathless._

_She smiles at him and he can’t stop himself from kissing her into the mattress, hands moving to her sides, tickling gently._

_‘‘Hangover gone?’’_

_She has no idea how it works every time, but it mostly does. She could lie, but there is no way she ever would, not to him._

_‘‘Yes, you were right.’’, she mock-grumbles into his neck._

_‘‘And what do good boys get?’’, he asks, teasing._

_‘‘Ugh, okay fine. But if I don’t like the end result, you’re not allowed to show it to anyone.’’_

_‘‘I told you, I promise. It will be the most artistic thing you’ve ever seen, fuckin’ Annie Leibovitz style.’’_

_He leaps out of bed, thrilled by the giggles she lets out at his remark. He prepares the camera, and walks back to the bed._

_‘‘How do you want me, Annie?’’, she asks, eyes twinkling with mirth now that the headache was nearly gone._

_He smirks, eyeing the bed and the sheets, arranging them across her form, taking any opportunity available to touch her._

_‘‘Any way I can get you, Gerri, you know that - but for this particular occasion, I think maybe lay on your left, arm bent under your cheek, your other arm on the pillow right beside it, look at the terrace doors.’’_

_He walks over to the curtains, throws them open them all the way, and the morning sun glides across her face so perfectly he has to take a breath, clear his throat._

_Her eyes change color then, under this new light, becoming diamond blue, his favorite kind of Gerri-eyes, and her features are very much sitting comfortably in that post coital haze he had mentioned earlier._

_He trains the lens of the camera on her upper body, takes a gentle step towards her until he finds the right angle, zooming in just a bit._

_And then he has it._

* * *

He knows then, his gut is telling him – the gut Gerri herself trained to not take any bullshit from anyone - that that anonymous email and the fucking image in it had nothing to do with any kind of affair, or a divorce Gerri was planning. She would never do that to him, and especially not like this.

But he was going to have to find out what was actually going on.

He thinks hard on who it could have been that sent him that photo in the first place, and why? He scratches Shiv off his list because he knows not even she is that stupid, not after what happened at the gala.

Kendall? Possibly. Maybe he was looking for something to drive a wedge between him and Gerri, and what better ammo than something like this.

He picks up his coat and clips on Molly’s leash.

When they’re out in the street, he lets the shrill air slice through his fogged up lungs, Molly walking happily in front of him, seemingly picking up on his slightly elevated mood.

He scrolls through his contacts, finds the number he is looking for.

‘‘Teddy, my man, what up? Yeah I know, I said we’d have drinks, but I’m a newly-married man, you know how it is!’’, he smiles into the phone, trying to endure the small talk without rolling his eyes, mostly manages to succeed.

‘‘Yeah, next week for sure. But listen, do you think you could do me a favor? Is there any way you can perform a little bit of that good ol’ hacking magic and find out who sent a certain image to my inbox? It’s a from a bogus e-mail, obviously, so maybe you can get me the IP address it was sent from?’’

* * *

Gerri boards the plane the next day at 4:30 am, completely exhausted, having eaten almost no proper food all week because it all kept coming back, and when she looks at herself in her compact, she wants to scream.

She is so tired, so full of anger and if she keeps up this line of thought, everyone at the office is going to know something is wrong.

She has to keep it together for two more days. Then, given whatever the outcome is, she may or may not fall apart.

Until then, she pats her cheeks, adding another layer of powder foundation, swipes concealer under her eyes, armor on.

Being CEO of Waystar felt like a life sentence sometimes.

* * *

He works from home the day Gerri is due to arrive - at six pm at the earliest - her schedule for the day packed to the rafters.

He doesn’t want to bother her with their private stuff at the office, but also knows that he wouldn’t be able to shut his mouth if he was there. So a day of working from home it is.

He trains himself well, stands in the mirror for a good fifteen minutes, imagining the conversation. Something was going on, and he isn’t going to let go.

* * *

She is up to her neck in paperwork, feeling like she needs an extra pair of hands to be able to go through any of it on time, her stomach eating itself in a bid to stay alive while somehow at the same time letting her know that if she ingested anything she would promptly see it in reverse.

She finally manages to stop for a bit, take a tentative bite of granola and a sip of water, fighting heavily with her own insides, hoping she is able to keep it down.

She hears Karolina enter, take a seat in front of her.

Gerri doesn’t look up, but Karolina doesn’t speak either.

After a while, she lifts her head, eyebrows furrowed, slightly annoyed at whatever Karolina is trying to play at. But the look on her face stops her.

‘‘What’s the matter, what’s going on?’’

Karolina shifts in her seat, brushes a hand through her hair, poised to speak, Gerri can see it. And yet no words are forthcoming.

‘‘Look, I really don’t have time for this. My head is killing me, sleep is merely an abstract notion at this point and I have about ten more folders to go through before I can go home. I haven’t seen Roman in five days, haven’t had time to speak to him in two, so please, just spit it out!’’

She is unraveling, unleashing rage and fear on a person who’s been nothing but a confidante and kind friend to her ever since she met her. She can’t seem to rein herself in.

Getting angry seems like a more sustainable option than sobbing her heart out in the middle of her office for everyone to see.

Karolina gets up and gently pries the sheaf of papers from her hold, swipes the huge remaining stack to the end of the desk. She then brushes her palms against her skirt, sitting back down in her seat, an air of the apologetic about her.

‘‘I’m just worried, that’s all. I noticed you haven’t been yourself this past week or so. Or rather, the few days before you suddenly left for Chicago with nothing in your schedule for months prior to indicate such a trip. And you don’t do spontaneous that well, barring your wedding day decision. And, if I may speak freely…?’’

Gerri has no clue where this is going but nods anyway, lips pressing together in a tight line.

‘‘You’re not the kind of mother to go and hold their child’s hand for work purposes. And you raised Julia to be the kind of daughter _who doesn’t need_ said kind of mother. So I guess my question is…what’s really going on?’’

* * *

In the car on her way to the penthouse, Gerri can do nothing but lean heavily against the glass of the window, the coolness of the pane helping with the mounting headache.

She feels bad for storming out on Karolina, but she wasn’t ready to face any of it.

So she did the worst, rudest thing she could ever have imagined herself doing. She ran.

_’’I’m sorry. I need a break. I’ll see you on Monday. We’ll talk then.’’_

She sends the message and packs up her phone, can’t stand to look at the thing any longer.

* * *

As she gets through the door she can already hear the gentle patter of Molly’s paws coming her way.

She doesn’t think she can hold herself up if Molly decides to jump so she decides a little preemptive maneuver is in order.

‘‘Hey, girl. Hi, sweetie.’’, she says, Molly still at a safe distance away, but galloping towards her steadily.

‘‘Stay.’’, she whispers, and Molly does as she is told, Gerri being the only person she ever listens to.

She leans down to pet her, promptly being slobbered all over, letting out a giggle of joy at the purity of the affection. She feels lighter once she gets up, enters the living room, Molly at her side.

‘‘Rome? I’m back!’’

‘‘Be right there!’’, he calls out from the kitchen.

When he finally comes out to greet her, she is busy fixing herself a drink, knowing it was probably a bad idea, but her brain is on autopilot, and it’s all she can do to keep her hands steady. She turns to look at him and can’t help a burst of uncontrollable giggles that comes out.

‘‘Oh my god!’’, she doubles over, then straightens and walks closer to get a better look at him. ‘‘What did you do?’’

‘‘I was making a smoothie, if you must know, m’lady.’’, he smiles and winks at her through a bit of liquid goop in his eye. She holds back a laugh, registers the amazing feeling of blissful joy, as fleeting as she is certain it is.

’’I figured I’d wait for you to get home for dinner and lunch could be some kale-avocado recipe monstrosity Tabitha has been raving about. That is the last time I use any utility in that fucking kitchen.’’ he says, picking out green chunks off the front of his shirt. ’’I didn’t know you were gonna be early, what happened?’’

‘‘I think maybe later on I should teach you that when you are making a smoothie the blender lid is a must’’, she says innocently, as he sticks his tongue out at her playfully.

’’Anyway, to answer your question, I was way too tired to do a full day. Now, how about you go clean up, I’ll order takeaway and then I’ll go take a bath. I feel like I still have that plane on me.’’

He nods, swipes the back of his hand against his splattered cheek to get rid of any offending vegetable matter and leans in.

‘‘A welcome back kiss?’’, he offers, pouting in that trademark mischievous way, and despite all her heartache of the previous week, she feels tons lighter. She leans in gently, captures his bottom lip, nipping softly, then letting the kiss deepen.

‘‘I missed you so much.’’, she says as they pull away, and thinks she can hear his breathing speed up, his eyes turning down at the corners, a sure sign of an emotional Roman.

‘‘Missed you, too. Okay, I am gonna rush this wash-job, so you can get to the tub. You want me to do the bubbles for you?’’

‘‘Sure. Not lavender though, just like it makes you sleepy, it makes me drowsy too, and if I fall asleep now, I’ll be up all night. Surprise me with anything else.’’

He smiles, nods and is on his way.

She puts in the food order, and sits back on the couch, setting her briefcase on the end table, Molly curling up by her side.

* * *

He cannot believe he is doing breathing exercises his shrink taught him only to be able to speak to his own wife. His phone is burning a hole in his pocket, that is how much he wants to yank it out, confront her with the image, but he knows he can’t, knows he has to trust her to tell him about all of it on her own.

He focuses on washing up, and then turns to the bath, setting the water temperature to the level he knows she prefers.

* * *

She dries off quickly and puts on her robe, trying with all her might not to turn to the mirror. Primarily, because she knows she looks horrible, the past days having drained her completely. And also, because she knows she will start crying again, and she isn’t sure she would be able to stop.

A few moments in, she gives in after all and turns to her reflection, sliding the robe slightly past her shoulders.

These tears she is afraid of are not unfamiliar, she knows, at least appearance wise - fat, crystalline droplets meandering their usual path down her cheeks, hitting whatever available surface there is underneath.

Their insides though, this time, are something completely different, and their emotional heft is the real problem.

Thicker and heavier, they feel almost viscous, each new drop dragging her lower still, especially back when she was all alone in Julia’s guest room, no Roman in sight.

Those things have the power to destroy her as good as a loaded gun.

She watches the woman opposite her slide her hand painfully slowly down the slope of her neck, brushing past her favorite necklace on its way down. She tries to ignore the flushed face, the now almost see-through irises, the blue of them pallid with terror.

Before the hand delves under the material of the robe covering her still, it stops, as if the momentary pause at her clavicle would make reality any different.

The final movement and skin on skin contact makes all breath stop, tensing in her lungs stretching them almost painfully.

She cups her left breast and the moment feels equally dissonant and jagged as it did some seven days prior when she first felt the lump. The biopsy incision now in its place is no less terrifying.

* * *

He is trying to serve the food onto the plates set onto the coffee table, but Molly keeps coming to beg for treats. In order to distract her, he grabs her favorite ball, throws it and she returns it just as quickly.

His second throw is not as good, the ball bouncing off the floor and into the side table against the couch, Molly promptly knocking over the remains of Gerri’s drink and the briefcase overflowing with work papers she brought home with her.

‘‘Fuck, Molls, she’s gonna kill us, dude. Look what you did!’’

He yanks the briefcase quickly away, saving most of the papers from martini-damage, part of the glass still in his grasp, and he bends over to grab the remaining set of documents, the left corner of which is fairly soaked. He grimaces at the levels of annoyance Gerri is bound to express at the sight, grinning slightly at a sudden idea he gets.

‘‘Sorry, girl, you’re gonna be taking the fall for this one.’’

He is giggling at an almost indignant looking Molly staring up at him. Until he catches the words written on the front of the folder.

_St Mary’s Hospital, Chicago,_

_Oncology Department_

_Patient’s name: Geraldine Kellman Roy_

* * *

The crash of glass from the living room makes her flinch and she closes her robe quickly, making her way to the source of the sound. She’s hoping Molly didn’t knock over any of the vases, the insurance claim on those Roy heirlooms would be a bitch to have to wrap up.

Before she can think about the absurdity of that thought she sees an ashen faced Roman holding the stem of her broken martini glass in one hand and a document folder in the other, Molly standing next to him holding her ball, apparently waiting for another throw.

‘‘Molly, crate.’’, Gerri manages through a tight throat, the dog scurrying to her designated area immediately.

She knows what the file is even without seeing it properly, it’s written on Roman’s inconsolable gaze.

‘‘Rome , I-’’, she starts, but is interrupted by the papers slipping out of his hold, sees him clutching his stomach, promptly throwing up all over the carpet.

She kneels behind him, talking him through the spasms, palm on his clammy forehead, her other hand clutched in his iron fist.

He stops heaving after a few seconds, and she starts to get up and head to the bathroom to get a washcloth for him but he refuses to let go.

‘‘Honey, I will be right back, okay?’’

His eyes are not focused, and he is anywhere but in that room, but still tethered so irrevocably to her presence that she can’t help but give in. She directs him off the floor and onto the couch, leaning into him gently, brushing that one errant lock of hair off his heated forehead.

They don’t talk, his hand in hers gripping stronger on occasion, and Gerri simply observes her beautiful husband, he of few words, but so painfully overwhelmed with emotions. She can’t even begin to imagine the process in his mind. But she can somehow see it. The fight he is waging to come back to her, but to also not shed a tear, to not be a baby, Logan’s voice surely echoing in his brain like a grim church bell. The Roy way is back, and she can’t let them have him again. Not now, not ever.

‘‘Talk to me, honey. I’m right here’’, she murmurs to him, trying to soothe his growing fear, her own completely overridden for the moment.

* * *

It felt like the ground had disappeared beneath him and the moment of realizing the cold, disgusting fact in front of his very eyes had lasted whole millennia.

She is sitting next to him now, holding his hand, pandering to his fucking temper tantrum, his embarrassing vomit fest, completely sidelining the fact of the matter which is that she’s–

He stops himself there, that’s not even an option.

He grips her hand rhythmically, in an attempt to ward off the chills of shock. No shock, not now, no tears either. Just cold, hard planning.

The best doctors, the best treatment, the best second opinion. She needs it she gets it. She so much as fucking thinks it, she gets it.

* * *

He breaks away from her grasp, strides firm and unwavering. She sees him walk off to their bedroom, hears water run in the bathroom, the cabinet open and close, him brushing his teeth.

He is back before she’s had time to think or do anything else, a wet rag in his hand, starts wiping up the mess off the carpet.

‘‘Roman, you have to-’’, she tries to stop him, calm him, but it’s no use, he’s like a steam roller, fighting off the negatives, movements against the material rough and uncoordinated, and she knows that in his head he is working on an exit plan, white knight strategy of his own.

‘‘Dad has a whole file of specialists at his beck and call, Marcia has all their numbers, I’m gonna have to call her later, I think it’s probably the middle of the night where she is.’’, he mumbles as he walks to the kitchen, getting rid of the rag. He is back in seconds, hands buried in his hair.

His eyes are crazy, reminding her of his old, hyper, pinball self, overcaffeinated on almond cortados and misery of the Roy existence.

She doesn’t know what happens, but she feels herself getting choked up all over again, her palm clasping against her lips, a breath lost halfway out of her lungs, a sob stifled behind it.

‘‘Roman, please, you have to STOP!’’

Her pleading scream halts him in his tracks, and he turns to look at her, only then registering the actual reality of the situation. She needs her husband now, not the spiraling version of him.

She buries her face in her palms, closing in on herself and he immediately turns back, taking her in his arms, cradling her gently, the shivers running through her body imprinting themselves on his.

Slowly, he looks down at her, hands coming up to cup her teary face, trying to pack up every ounce of fear he is feeling, trying not to let it show on his face.

‘‘Lets’ rest for a bit. Leave the food for later.’’

The fact that she wordlessly obeys shows him how tired, on all fronts, she really is. He leads her to their bedroom, stops her before she gets in bed to take off her robe. He slides it gently past her shoulders, feels her hands at the hem of his t-shirt, lifting it up and taking it off. He takes off his briefs and helps her under the covers, soon joining her, feels her sigh into his shoulder at the comforting skin on skin contact.

They need this moment right here. To center them. He wants to know everything, how they are going to handle whatever this is, whatever she has been keeping from him. But he also needs not to upset her.

‘‘I’m sorry, Rome.’’

He doesn’t ask why she is apologizing. He had once asked her never to lie to him, but he knows why she did this time. He would have done the same had the roles been reversed. Doesn’t mean he likes that it happened but he can understand it.

He slides a warm finger across the bridge of her nose, the little bump where her glasses would normally sit, he adores it so much, the very thing she says she hates about her nose.

He follows the motion up with sliding the back of his hand down her cheek, wiping away the tears that keep flowing nonetheless, trying for a brave encouraging smile, finally breaking down, he feels the drops skydive off the edge of his nose and onto his pillow.

‘‘No apologies. Never apologize. I have learned long ago that you do everything for a solid reason. But I need you to trust me. I know that what happened just now, that fucking childish tantrum of spacing out and vomiting moment wasn’t the best representation of how I can deal with this, but…I am back now. And we will do this together. Okay?’’

* * *

His voice is deeper now, she feels the register lower, and the attempt to keep it together is wearing away at his psyche, she can see it clear as day. She attempts a smile, only manages to entice more tears out of him.

She doesn’t think she’ll manage much by way of words, so she decides to start by simply showing him.

His hand is making its way under the covers, serpentining upwards across her thighs , gently stopping at her warm hip grasping there, as if binding himself more firmly to her.

She takes it in her own, never breaking eye contact, each new blink bringing more tears than the one before. But, as opposed to the terror-inducing heavy ones, these tears feel fresh, light, airy and cathartic.

He doesn’t know what she is doing at first, but as she presses his palm onto her breast and her eyes urge him to look down, he follows her line of sight and sees the rather tiny scar. He leans into her, a small, almost imperceptible cry lodged in the roof of his mouth. He lets his finger run across the suture softly.

‘‘Biopsy. Results in two days.’’

* * *

Why? Why her? That’s the only thing he can seem to hear in his head.

She is so brave, despite the tears in her eyes, just looking at him trying to gauge his reaction, always looking for ways to minimize the damage done to him, even now, even in this fucking nightmare they’ve found themselves in.

‘‘When did you first-’’, he manages to utter the few words but stops, throat freezing up, and she entwines their legs, her arms hugging him close. He lets himself be held, needs it more than air.

‘‘A week ago. I was showering and…’’, she takes a steadying breath, ‘‘I realized I have to act fast. My mom and aunt both died from it. I get mammograms every year, the girls too, I had them well trained when it came to that. So even if it is-’’, she pauses, the silence less than ominous now that most of it was out, ‘‘-something to worry about, they will have caught it early, my last mammogram was two months ago, and everything was clear then.’’

He wants to scream for not knowing any of this stuff, for not caring once to ask her about simple things like food she is allergic to or _fuck_ , what hereditary illnesses might one day yank her from him. He focuses back on her voice to keep himself sane.

‘‘I decided to go to Chicago because I have a friend there who is a specialist, and because there would certainly be less chance of being seen by the press. I’m sorry, I should never have lied to you, but in my defense another two days, given good results, everything would have been back to normal.’’

He is starting to feel the needles of anger now, because he can’t help feel she is equating him with Baird and it makes his teeth itch in annoyance just thinking about that man.

‘‘Gerri…I know you probably don’t need to hear me being a whiny baby right now, but, please don’t ever confuse me with your dead husband ever again.’’

She frowns, and he readjusts their position, wrapping his arms around her, letting her settle more comfortably against him. He thinks he can feel her stitches against his chest, tries not to pull her towards him as much, he knows it must hurt.

‘‘I know your motivation for hiding this potentially life changing thing came from the need to protect. Protect me, but also protect yourself from…I don’t know, me not knowing how to react to the news – which, yeah, my previous little performance really did give that part of your doubt a bit of leeway, but come on.’’ He presses a light kiss onto her curls. ‘‘Like Shiv once said to me – good fucking god I cannot believe I am bringing her into this conversation but just bear with me - she once mentioned, hitting the nail on the head so well, that you’ve taught me everything I know about how to function like a normal human being. So start trusting me that I will be there, for everything and anything. I may need a course readjustment every once in a while – like the one that just happened in the living room - but I will always show up. You need to, for once, allow someone else to be the rock, okay? CEO ends at the office. Be my Gerri, my wife, once you leave it. Let me take the wheel.’’

She raises her head, tears stopping for the moment, realizes there is something quite meaningful she wants to tell him.

‘‘Listen to me now...’’, she murmurs into his lips, almost shyly, pecks them lightly. He nods.

‘‘I never formed attachments to people easily, mostly because there was always a wild card in there somewhere and they always ended up disappointing me. But, as hungry as any person is for connections, links to others, I would accept the state of matters, ride out the wave for as long as I could, until whatever person I was trying to incorporate into my life in whatever capacity showed their true side. I considered them illnesses, inevitable parasites to host to keep myself functioning.’’

She bites down on her lower lip, trying to focus better, express herself in a more coherent way.

‘‘So, before the yacht, and your kidnapping, way back when we were undefined at best…I thought of you as another connection my mind and my body wanted, needed, but a connection that would inevitably break, a future loss I would need to live with. Back then, I had only an inkling, if that, of who you might truly be, who you truly _are_. I was angry for letting myself care at all for you, but I somehow knew, even as far as back then that I would have no choice but to open up to you. And then, I think possibly it happened in the moment I heard you were taken in Turkey…it hit me. You were never like any of the others, unlike any other person in my life, friend, or lover. Never an illness. You were – _are_ – the cure.’’

She doesn’t let him say anything, surges up and kisses him deeply, feels him respond immediately, tongue gliding along hers, fingers digging into her hips, possessive and warm.

‘‘Sleep?’’, she says when they break apart, and he just nods, both of them too tired to do much else, letting the solid feel of the other’s presence lull them to sleep.

* * *

He wakes up first a while later, her warm breath tickling his neck, and he resists the urge he has to move, even though as soon as his eyes opened he could sense the rush of anxiety coming on.

He lets the sound of her even inhales and exhales soothe him, pressing her closer, Gerri shifting into his hold more comfortably.

He can’t even begin to process. He knows she will have a plan, knows her rationalization of what’s happening is correct but he also knows she is terrified to her very core of this.

He doesn’t know what he would do if he lost her, but he is also painfully aware that he can let none of that show. She needs to be allowed to focus on her healing, not on having to take care of him every minute of every day.

He looks to the digital clock on her nightstand. He would have to wake her soon enough, she needs to eat something and they need to at least be able to sleep a few hours in the night.

Two days until the results. It’s going to feel like two years.

* * *

Dinner is heaven, and Gerri thinks maybe she and her stomach have finally come to a détente, or maybe that’s just Roman’s presence, calming her beyond all reason.

Molly pads over to them at the coffee table, and as Gerri is finishing her pasta, she feels the dog’s gentle giant head nudging under her chin, pushing her into the back of the couch, settling comfortingly on her chest.

‘‘Molly, come on, down.’’, he says, worried about Gerri’s suture, but she waves him off.

‘‘It’s, okay honey, she can stay, she is being very careful.’’, Gerri says, noting how good Molly is at reading her. The cuddles are just what she needs to stop her derailing train of thought. The soft fur and reassuring weight of the dog on her chest invigorate her more than she’d ever thought possible.

Roman sits on her other side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

‘‘Movie?’’, he asks, but she knows there’s nothing he wants to do less than watch a film right now.

‘‘No, I’m okay, Rome. We can talk now.’’

He exhales hard, leaning back against the cushions, his free hand burying in his hair.

‘‘Okay, so, there’s something I have to show you.’’

She is surprised at that turn of events, she had expected he’d want her to start with the very beginning, tell him everything immediately.

‘‘When you were at dinner with those old friends you mentioned…’’, he hesitates for a second, but her arched eyebrow is all he needs to finish his question.

‘‘Did you maybe feel like someone was watching you?’’

She frowns at the question and she watches him pull out his phone, turns it towards her.

‘‘Someone sent me this that night. I figured it was taken at the same time.’’

He tries to leave the doubt he felt at the time in the back of his mind but she looks up, immediately seeking eye contact.

‘‘Rome, I…I don’t know who the fuck sent you this, but, you have to know I would never, in a million years – ‘‘

‘‘I know. That’s not even why I showed this to you. I am genuinely worried about the fact that someone was clearly following you, taking photos of you like this. We know for sure it wasn’t the press, this would be all over every publication imaginable if it was. This shit is personal. When I got over my initial shock, I realized it couldn’t be anyone else but one of my pissed off family members. Face it Gerr, you know as well as I do, any one of them fits the bill. Kendall, Dad, even Connor, I really wouldn’t put it past him. Shiv I can see doing this, but I don’t know why, I just don’t think it wasn’t her. Too scared of us, I think. As she fucking should be.’’

He decides not to mention just how well he believes his intimidation technique at the gala worked on Shiv, hopes he’s right.

Gerri takes a deep breath, her mouth set into a tight thin line, anger simmering quietly in the nervous bobbing of her throat as she swallows a sip of her wine.

‘‘First of all, the man on the photo is an old friend, I wasn’t lying. I was maybe just omitting why I was meeting him.’’

‘‘Tabitha said she recognized him, that he handled her mom and dad’s separation.’’

‘‘Well, she is right, he’s a lawyer. He is also my lawyer, for all family matters. I was-’’, she stops, looks down at a now gently snoring Molly.

‘‘I was updating my will, my power of attorney, next of kin. I never got round to it after we got married. He happened to be in Chicago for a case so I decided to meet him for drinks. The moment our would-be stalker caught on camera was the moment I told him what I needed him for and why. That’s why he was holding my hand.’’

‘‘I know, Gerr, I know’’, he bends down, kisses her softly, their body language always better at conveying the intent than any set of words ever could.

He refuses to process the terms _will, power of attorney_ and _next of_ _kin_. No time or reason for that. Baby steps, he tells himself.

‘‘But what we do have to do is find out who took this photo.’’, he says, adamant.

‘‘Let me see it again.’’, she asks, taking his phone from his hand.

She zooms in closer, focusing first on her own face, then on Mark’s. The pity on his features was so well hidden in the moment, but when she sees it again in high resolution it all comes flooding back. Having no time to deal with yet another facet of fear and grief, she overrides the nerves and focuses instead on the background. The bar they’re sitting at happens to have a lovely mirror mosaic backsplash. The people reflected in it all merge into one big blur not focused enough for her to see who may have snapped the image.

‘‘You know when you’re doing _Where’s Waldo_ , and you know that you can see him but can’t seem to actually pinpoint him? This photo is giving me the exact same feeling. Like the answer is right there but I am completely in the dark.’’

‘‘Doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it, I have Teddy on it, he’ll get me the IP address as soon as he can, provided the fucker didn’t send the photo from like a Starbucks or something.’’

She nods, sliding her hand down Molly’s back, the dog twitching slightly, probably chasing a cat along a meadow in her dreams.

‘‘Rome?’’, she asks, head against his shoulder. He nods, indicating she should continue.

‘‘For the next two days we need to keep calm. We need to not think about it. We’ll go insane if we give into it. Can you promise me? And I will do the same.’’

He nods, fingers twitching against her stomach, their warmth penetrating to her very core.

’’I promise.’’, he whispers, leaning his chin against the crown of her head, letting his tired eyes lose focus against the light of the furthest lamp.

They go to bed later that night, exhausted, both knowing with enormous certainty they lied in making that promise.

* * *

Her alarm wakes her at five thirty and she turns further into him, groaning into his shoulder.

‘‘Ugh, I forgot to switch it off.’’

He swipes a gentle hand across her face, moving her curls away from her eyes.

‘‘Did you have something on your agenda for today? ’’

She hears the slight shakiness in his voice, knows he must have been awake before her, brain already on, cycling through the negatives of the day before.

‘‘Yeah, I had a working breakfast planned with Frank and the rest of his team, but I had Liz cancel it.’’

There’s something in her face, a kind of worried tightness, that tells him she’s withholding a vital piece of information. Not to mention the fact he knows Gerri would never cancel on a function or meeting that late.

‘‘It is five thirty in the morning Gerr, please don’t make me tickle the answer I’m looking for out of you.’’

She snickers at that, notes, through the fear of the previous day, how good it feels to just…be. His wife. With him. In their bed. She turns to him.

‘‘Okay. Yeah, I-…Karolina made some valid points yesterday and I couldn’t answer all her questions. Because I really wasn’t in the mood to even think about it more than I already was, and because I would never tell anyone before I told you. And yes, you did find out by accident, but honestly…I don’t think I would have held on much longer, by the end of this weekend I probably would have come clean. Lying to you, even though in my mind it was for a good reason made me feel dirty.’’

It was exhausting to be afraid alone.

He nods, a warm arm placed around her waist, face buried in the crook of her neck.

‘‘Okay. Well, I think you should maybe at least call Karolina. She was genuinely worried, and kept me from going off the rails. Though – confession time – I did have a minor vodka flavored bender after I first saw the photo.’’

He can see she is going to start explaining herself again, to calm him further, but he shakes his head, reaching for her hand, twining their fingers.

‘‘I know, Gerr. It was a momentary lapse, because I felt something was off and had no idea what it was, and this image showed up to torture me further. In hindsight though, I wish it was true. I wish you were cheating on me, I wish he was a lawyer you were hiring to divorce me. Because that…that would mean you’re not going through this fucking scare and I’d much rather have you safe and healthy even if it meant you wanted to leave me.’’

She kisses his neck, breathes him in, for some reason keeping it together way more easily than the day before.

‘‘I am not going to lie to you again and say it wasn’t the worst feeling of my life, this past week, having to go to all these doctor’s appointments, on my own, without you to hold my hand. Yesterday, telling you, it made my heart so much lighter. So even if the news is bad, that does not fucking mean it’s the end of the road, I promise you that. So, what I want you to do is try and feed off and into that energy. Can you do that for me? My scans show a good chance of it being completely benign, but due to my family medical history Jenna decided it was best to do a biopsy, rule everything out immediately.’’

As she speaks, he feels his lungs open, air seeping in through all the once tight crevices the spasm of his body created yesterday. He nods, feeling her hope, and his smile makes hers grow.

‘‘Okay, Molewoman. You have a fair point.’’

But then again, when did she not?

‘‘So…what do you want to do today?’’

She scrunches her nose in thought and he leans in to kiss it. She giggles, brushes her hand across his warm cheek.

‘‘Maybe we can have Karolina over for lunch or something? I need to apologize.’’

‘‘You’re gonna tell her?’’

‘‘I don’t want to tell people before we know the results – or rather I’m hoping telling people won’t be something we need to do after I get them, but…this is Karolina. One of my closest friends. And I treated her like shit when all she did was try to help.’’

He pockets the warm feeling he gets at her use of the word ‘‘we’’ for later, and nods.

‘‘I know. You’re right. So, three for lunch if she’s available then?’’

* * *

Karolina tries to keep it together, and manages to, for the most part, but Gerri can see she’s on some kind of verge.

‘‘Honey would you walk Molly? I think it’s time, she’s been pacing by the front door for thirty minutes now.’’

Molly was doing no such thing, but he knows she wants to be alone with Karolina.

‘‘Sure thing. Don’t wait up though, our mission the other day was to find that squirrel that lives in the tree in the park, and we missed it by half a yard, Molls seemed very upset. Isn’t that right, Molls?’’

Molly’s tail wags at hearing the word ‘‘park’’ and he smiles at her expectant face.

Gerri lets out a heartfelt laugh and calls over to Molly, the dog padding quickly to her, setting her head on Gerri’s lap.

‘‘You be a good girl now, okay Molls? You don’t chase for the kill, chase for the fitness.’’

Karolina smiles, and Gerri sees her surreptitiously wipe a tear away. She sighs as she watches Roman and Molly leave.

* * *

‘‘I made a mistake not telling Roman straight away.’’, she says to Karolina, pouring them both more wine.

‘‘Even before he knew what it was, Gerri, he could sense something was wrong. If you’d seen him-’’ She stops herself, knowing it would only upset her further, but Gerri nods.

‘‘I know. I don’t know how I hadn’t predicted something like that would happen.’’

‘‘Because you were scared, and this wasn’t something to be taken lightly. You wanted to protect him.’’

‘‘Yes, but he’s right. I keep forgetting this isn’t a marriage of one. He isn’t Baird, he isn’t some vacant shell of a man only there to fulfill the moniker of husband, being real for everyone but his own wife. And I have to actively start reminding myself of that. This muscle memory is a thing I need to reverse.’’

‘‘But it’s good, you guys are talking, you always work on your arguments, if anyone can even call them that. Seriously, you have one of the best marriages I have ever seen simply for the fact that you make a conscious effort to communicate. Even in this extraordinary situation, in the end, you managed to find a way to have a discussion rather than a crockery breaking fight. And that’s big.’’

‘‘Yes, I know. ‘‘, she smiles warmly, as always, the mere thought of him making her feel lighter.

‘‘Now what the hell is this about a photograph?’’

Gerri fills her in on all of it, trying to prevent her teeth from grinding together in anger.

‘‘Roman said he should have the IP address soon so we’ll see who it is then. But I swear to you, the rage that coursed through me after processing the fact that someone followed me the way they did, that they sent the photo to him for a specific purpose of riling him up, making him not trust me? I can’t even begin to explain it.’’

‘‘Do you have any idea who it could be?’’

‘‘No, but I have such an inexplicable negative sensation in the pit of my stomach as I think about it, and I don’t know why.’’

* * *

‘‘Molly, I swear to you, if Gerri sees you tracking mud in she will kill both of us, and I don’t think she’ll start with you, so when she does get to you, I won’t be able to save you. Is that what you want?’’

Molly tilts her head at him, seemingly understanding but not giving a single damn, barking twice for good measure, urging him to throw the ball. He relents with a fond sigh, knows he’s gonna have to wrangle her into the bath the minute they get back.

His phone lights up with several notifications and he goes through them, keeping an eye on a frolicking Molly, now busy getting her rear end sniffed by the tiniest Chihuahua he’d ever seen.

He scrolls through his inbox, archiving emails he needs to deal with on Monday, when a text from Teddy pops up.

* * *

‘‘We’re back!’’, he calls out into the living room. ‘‘I’m just gonna give Molly a bath, she got way too frisky with the ball, the nearby mudslide…and several other dogs, but let’s not get into that right now.’’

He ushers Molly in the bath, and she seems to sense his ill mood and obeys without much fuss even though she is not the biggest fan of the large white tub.

‘‘You want a drink?’’, Gerri asks, holding her own martini, already in her pjs again, meaning Karolina had left. He thinks back on when he first realized that unless she had places to go or people to see slash entertain, she would always pick a comfortable set of pajamas to lounge about in over any other type of outfit. It always reminded him of their first night together, if he could call it that, at Tern Haven.

‘‘Nah, I’m good for now. Maybe later.’’

He tries to lather the shampoo onto an already whiny Molly and Gerri sees his struggle, getting down to help him. He refrains from warning her about her knees, instead motioning for her to sit on the side of the tub and hold the shower head while he works on the rest.

‘‘Come on Molly, be good for Daddy now, okay.’’, she hums to the dog, petting her nose, placing a soft kiss on the wet fur there.

Immediately, Molly’s wriggles end and she stands solemnly still, allowing Roman to get all the chunks of mud out of her coat.

‘‘You fucking dog whisperer, you.’’, he murmurs and Gerri laughs, reaching to brush his now completely soaking hair out of his face. Molly really did a number on him, she notes, a warm smile on her face.

They’re quiet for a while, focusing on not flooding the entire bathroom, Molly now panting heavily, drinking the suds, Gerri trying to stop her.

‘‘Oh, when Karolina and I were saying goodbye, I got a call from Ryon. They want another sitdown. Tomorrow.’’

He looks up, shuts the water off, reaching for one of the specially designated Molly towels in the cupboard.

‘‘Yeah, I did seem to see something from them in my inbox but I set it aside for next week. It wasn’t marked urgent.’’

She shrugs, finishing her drink, watching him pat down Molly, hoping she wasn’t going to have to stop her from running out half-wet and onto their bed, which seemed to be her go to move after every bath.

‘‘Anyway, they said they want to talk and that they were going to fly their team over tomorrow at eleven a.m. if that was okay with me. I normally wouldn’t cave easily – bad business practice and all, but…’’

He knows what she means. He can’t stop thinking about it either. And a day at the office, with corporate chess and the buzz of work around them would at least help pass the time quicker.

’’And besides’’, she continues, ’’we can’t be seen burning bridges. The Logan Roy way is supposed to be long-eradicated from Waystar.’’

He nods, completely on board.

‘‘Okay. Eleven am it is. Now, I am about to step away from her. I need to be goalie, switch with me?’’

She lets out a laugh and goes to take his place, him blocking the door of the bathroom, expecting an eager Molly to rush out to it as soon as she is released from Gerri’s hold.

* * *

‘‘You ready? Jonathan texted he’s downstairs.’’, he calls out into the bedroom.

When he gets no reply from her, he goes to check on her in the bathroom.

‘‘Gerr?’’

He’s stopped in his tracks by her facing away from him, silk shirt unbuttoned and down at her waist, hanging at her elbows.

A tiny whimper lets loose from her throat as she lifts the item up, starting to button it. He rushes over to her, grabbing her gently by the arm, making her face him.

He looks down and sees a bit of crimson staining the pristine white of the material of her lace bra cup.

‘‘The shower this morning or the bath yesterday must have softened the sutures, even though I taped the area off, and it…I don’t know why I’m crying…’’

But he does. Because the entire situation is terrifying and seeing yet another reminder of it on a day she has to go into work and keep a clear head for a potentially big company purchase was the last thing she needed.

He pries away the bit of cotton from her hand, sets it aside and turns to wash his hands.

He then directs her to the bedroom, getting her to sit at the foot of the bed.

‘‘Jenna said this could happen, that I should use the butterfly strips to deal with it if it did. They’re on the counter.’’, she says, trying to calm her breathing, eyes slightly unfocused.

He nods, mind on the task so he could stay well away from falling apart.

‘‘Did you clean it?’’, he asks, turning to walk back to the bathroom.

She only nods, more tears running down her face.

He retrieves the strips and kneels in front of her to apply them.

He helps her out of the shirt and bra, mindful of the incision. Then he turns to the wound itself, gently pats the excess blood away, fingers steady and warm against her skin. He doesn’t know how he has the wherewithal to be calm about it, but he supposes it’s the fact that he knows he needs to be the strong one now. And doing anything for Gerri was never a hard task.

He notices most of the stitches are intact, meaning there was probably less potential for infection.

When he is done, he lets his fingers rest against her skin, taking a deep breath.

‘‘Does it hurt?’’

‘‘No. It did the first few hours after the procedure but then it was fine. I think that’s why I only noticed the broken sutures when I saw the blood.’’

Her voice is a whisper, her hands threading through the hair at the back of his head almost surreal and he feels a tear slide down his cheek.

He drops a soft kiss next to the area he tended to, hears a hitched breath leave her lips.

He trails a path of equally tender kisses all the way up to her throat, finally finding her mouth.

She takes over then, devouring him with the dirtiest, hottest kiss he ever experienced. She is panting into him, reaching down for the belt of his trousers, teeth nipping at the skin of his neck, the taste of her tears branding his tongue.

His phone interrupts them and she groans in disappointment as he presses his forehead against her collar bone.

‘‘Real world sucks.’’, he says, hands coming up to cup her face, place another brief kiss on her lips.

‘‘Don’t I know it.’’

He picks up his phone.

‘‘Yeah, Jonathan, we’ll be right there.’’, he says as she moves away from the bed to get dressed.

* * *

In the car on the way to the office she rebuilds her armor, she can almost physically feel Geri the CEO take over, the facial muscles used for smiling and as of late – crying – are put on pause, posture perfect and irreproachable. She catches Jonathan’s eye in the rearview mirror. She nods politely in his general direction and turns to a dozing Molly on the opposite seat, ruffling her fur. Molly seems too sleepy to interact, so Gerri lets her be and looks away into the traffic surrounding them.

‘‘The Ryon bitches don’t know what’s gonna hit them’’, Roman says, one hand scrolling through his phone the other holding hers, the one allowance Gerri makes for her CEO self. She always needs Roman.

‘‘I don’t know where they get off demanding to meet with us, but I really want to make them regret it. After the last stunt they pulled, cooking their own books the way they did, they’re lucky we didn’t go further with that information.’’, she murmurs, almost as an afterthought.

‘‘Yeah, well, it’s the whole glass houses thing. Like you said when we cut ties last time - we both have reputations to protect, it’s just that we have to leverage their shitfest against our own so that Waystar comes off as the innocent little baby – which, thanks to our power couple status the public has already made possible for us – and then make sure they come to heel. I swear to you, if I have to hear that annoying Texas twang more times than absolutely necessary I will raise fucking hell.’’

She nods, agreeing with everything he said, leaning back into the car seat.

‘‘It’s going to be a long day.’’

* * *

‘‘Gerri, forgive me, but I do think you misunderstood.’’

She refrains from rolling her eyes. It has been hours of negotiations and her head is starting to pound.

It is way past lunch time, the fact that it was almost winter painfully obvious in the already navy colored sky.

She is beginning to fervently resent all things Texas. Karolina and Frank too, both of their faces shuttered and neutral, Gerri knowing all they want to do is tell the bastards to fuck off.

Roman is next to her, and she can see, from the corner of her eye, him biting the end of his pen so hard, she thinks it will snap away and he’ll end up swallowing it, stops herself from saying as much.

‘‘Oh, I understood perfectly.’’, she throws back at the smug-looking excuse for a businessman. ‘‘You want to fuck us without getting fucked. Is that about the gist of it?’’

Roman straightens in his seat at the seemingly invisible poles being jammed up the three Texans’ assess - if their posture was anything to go by - not even trying to hide his smirk at Gerri’s words. God, he loves the stone cold killer bitch.

‘‘This back and forth has been an ongoing dance between us for months, and frankly I am sick of it. Don’t take this the wrong way gentlemen, but, I would like you to leave our company, right now, and break all contact with us. Because if thinly veiled insults and a poor attempt at sweet-talking is all you have for us – despite promising the world to me on the phone yesterday - we will definitely pass. Because let’s face it, there’s only one Waystar. Ryon? Well, you’re ten a penny, I would say. We can afford the luxury.’’

She finishes and Karolina picks up the thread easily.

‘‘Just in case you were considering using bad press against us, I would think twice about that.’’

She gives them each a folder of mock press clippings she designed for part of the material she could use on them. Roman smirks at Gerri’s wiliness, always feeling so lucky to be able to witness it in person.

‘‘Gentlemen, Frank will see you out. I would strongly advise against any kind of reactive force in this situation. Don’t pick a fight unless you’re sure you’re going to win.’’

* * *

’’Good god, I was so close to screaming’’, murmurs Karolina, as she checks her inbox, the four of them still in the board room, taking a much needed breather after the Ryon representatives had left, bristling, but with their tails neatly tucked between their legs.

’’Anybody hungry? Wanna order a takeaway or shall we all scatter back like rats to our comfy homes to try and forget tomorrow is Monday?’’, Roman asks, his eyes on Gerri, her face unreadable as she taps away on her own phone.

‘‘I am beat, and I promised my granddaughter I would take her skating tonight, so I’m out.’’

Frank gets his coat and briefcase, throwing a salute at them before they watch him walk away.

’’I am going to go too. Pablo’s been a bit sick these days, stomach issues.’’, says Karolina, the mention of her dog reminding Roman they should get Molly some food too.

’’Alright, we’ll all leave together then, let me just go take a leak and we’ll go.’’

Gerri nods, throwing a small, indescribably wrong smile his way. Roman tries not to let the very skillfully hidden fear and a little bit of something else unidentifiable he registers in her eyes get to him. He needs to keep it together.

* * *

As he gets back to the board room, he notices Karolina’s the only one left in there.

‘‘Hey, Gerri back at her office?’’

Karolina looks at him and he can immediately tell something is wrong.

‘‘Karolina? What’s going on?’’

‘‘She said she had a missed call during the meeting. I think she went to her office to deal with it. Roman…I think it was her doctor.’’, she finishes, seemingly breathless, trying to not fall apart almost as much as he was.

And there it was, the reason for the odd look Gerri gave him not moments prior.

He doesn’t even register himself running but he is, and the hallway never seemed as long.

He sees the blinds are down on her office walls and he comes to a screeching halt right in front of the doors.

This is it, somehow the results are early and they’re going to know, one way or another. His clammy hand pushes against the door, and he enters, sees her at her desk, clutching her phone. She turns to him, locks eyes with his.

He can’t read her, much as he tries, he doesn’t know if it’s good news or bad news, his stomach churning, bile foaming in his gut.

He is still gripping the glass of the door when she frowns, head tilting.

’’Come in or fuck off. This is loitering.’’

The biggest, honest-to-god joyful, fuck off beast of a smile then appears on her face, and he lands on the carpet, on his knees, having lost all strength to hold himself up, all air leaving his lungs, hands palms down on the carpet, barely keeping him from fainting.

* * *

_‘‘It’s completely benign, Gerri. I couldn’t wait to call you. I had the lab rush the results.’’_

_She doesn’t know how to react. Literally, her body is frozen in terror and relief at once, her synapses late in explaining that she should unclench, rejoice, breathe. She feels her hand tremble by the side of her face as she holds the phone to her ear._

_‘‘I…Thank you, Jenn…’’, she manages, and the words feel like dust in her mouth, tongue rigid and heavy._

_‘‘Go, tell your husband. And I’ll call you later so we can chat longer, okay?’’_

_She hears the smile in her dear friend’s voice, feels it try and seep onto her lips as well, for a brief moment, though it doesn’t quite make it. She nods, then remembers this was a phone conversation, not a Facetime call._

_‘‘Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow.’’_

_‘‘Bye, hun.’’_

_‘‘Bye.’’_

_Her thoughts are too loud when she hangs up, she has to shut them down, closes her eyes to try and focus. Which is when she hears Roman at the door and she looks at him, all the Legos of her distraught psyche landing in place at the sight of him._

_The good news finally manages to register on her face, a one-liner unique to their history fired off in his direction, a sign all was well again._

* * *

He feels her hand on the small of his back, rubbing soothing circles and somehow he manages to listen to her voice, hears her direct him toward the couch. He lands on it rather ungracefully, lungs still processing the scant amount of air they’re letting in.

Gerri dials Karolina to let her know she should go on ahead without them.

‘‘Yes…it’s good news. I know, he’s here, having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with it just yet.’’, Gerri says into her phone, her free hand reaching out to cup his jaw gently, guiding his eyes towards hers, trying to ground him.

‘‘Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay.’’

She hangs up, walks over to the mini bar and grabs him a bottle of Evian.

‘‘Honey, have a sip, you look pale.’’

He takes the bottle from her, untwists the cap, downs half of it in one go.

‘‘I have to go get Molly, and then we can go home, I think we deserve a rest. A celebratory sleep, hm?’’

She turns to get up but he winds his arm around her waist, captures her lips, his tongue demanding entrance, hotly possessive and persistent. She moans, acquiesces immediately, melting into the embrace, hand grabbing his tie at the knot, pulling him closer into herself.

He releases her after a while of passionate kissing, eyes now fully present, completely black, his hand gently wrapping itself around her warm neck.

He drops another soft kiss on her lips, withdraws to let her get up.

She surprises both of them by reaching the door, locking it. She turns back to him, strides slowly to stand right on front of him, smirks at the bulge in the front of his trousers.

It’s a matter of moments before she yanks him up by his tie, leads him to the windows.

‘‘You once masturbated in your office against windows not unlike these, am I correct?’’, she reminds him of the particular time Bourbon Bedtime drew that confession out of him.

He nods, breaths heavy, hands shaky and eager to get her body back into their possession.

‘‘I think I need to one up you, being your boss and all that. And you’re going to help me, like the good husband you are.’’

* * *

He will never stop being infatuated with the way she owns him, drives him, moves him, like a puppeteer, like the tempting mistress of the meager offering that is his dick, only ever hard for her, just her.

As he watches her turn her back to the glass, dropping her skirt to the floor, stockings and high heels out for him to feast on, he shakes off the fog that threatened to take over his mind moments before.

‘‘Oh really?’’, he teases, approaching her, his fingers undoing her buttons deftly, sending the silk to the floor to join her skirt.

He unclasps her bra, letting it slip down her arms, then looks down at the butterfly strips he’d applied that very morning, cups her gently, his other hand mirroring his movements on her right breast.

She reaches out, winds her arms around his neck, trying to pull him in for a kiss, but he stops her.

He starts off by lifting her arms up and to her sides, pinned against the glass, held in his own, as his lips explore the column of her neck. Her hands remain where he left them, her reading his direction as expertly as ever.

He moves back to her lips, takes possession of them easily, the deepest of kisses, the most meaningful imprint of mutual ownership branded all over each of them.

His hands slide down her chest, fingers toying with her nipples, pinching and pulling, testing the waters, a pained groan issued from her lips stopping him in his tracks, eyes snapping to hers.

’’No, it’s good, keep going, it’s okay…’’, she murmurs against his lips, pulling him into herself.

She had no idea how good the bit of pain mixed with pleasure could feel until a jolt of a barbed wire ache mixed with her arousal pinned her straight back to that window, getting her wetter in a second.

He thinks the pressure of his fingers must have also jostled the stitches and he makes sure to not touch them again, but still working on that pressure he is sure she will like.

His other hand grabs a handful of her thigh, squeezing just to the brink of pleasurable discomfort.

She groans, her forehead pressed against his shoulder, and he slowly makes his way to her core, parting her with eager fingers, amazed at the amount of arousal seeping out of her and onto his waiting hand.

He is thorough as he always is, no inch of aroused flesh left unattended to, no nerve ending left unstimulated, as she thrusts into his hand, trying to hold in the cries of pleasure and relief at once.

‘‘No one is left in this entire building, wife. Let me fucking hear you.’’

Something snaps in her and she can’t hold it in anymore, sobs out his name loudly as he lifts her leg onto his hip, higher and at just the right angle to bring her so very close to the brink.

He stops right before his fingers have accomplished their task and she somehow manages to take over, pushes him backwards, to the couch.

His pants are unbuttoned before he’s had time to think about it much, and she straddles him, takes him in her warm hold, guides him into herself.

The first thrust of her body onto his makes him throw his head back against the couch, thinks maybe he’ll have to take the whole thing back to their place, build a shrine to it. Office sex wasn’t something he ever thought would feel this good. Though, he guesses somewhere in his delirium, it was so much more than office sex.

She lifts herself up and down onto him with just the right amount of force and at just the right angle to prolong the pleasure for both of them for long minutes, both of them bathing in the effervescence of the impending orgasm.

Just as he thinks he can’t take it much longer, he feels her get up, guiding him on top of her.

He spreads her legs, lifts her right thigh around his hip again, feels her left hand grip his ass, spurring him on, letting her nails dig painfully into him.

He takes her right hand, leads it to his own throat.

The understanding in her eyes is immediate and he swallows hard right before he keeps thrusting, her erratic sweaty body slick and hot under his palms, the grip of her fingers stronger around his throat, making every sensation ten times stronger.

* * *

It never ceases to amaze her, the new depths to which their lovemaking could yet go, the levels on which they have yet to find out they are able to connect at.

He rocks into her, each new movement bringing with itself a new set of fireworks going off behind her eyelids. The trust he put in her - embodied now in her hand around his throat - makes a heavy sob of pure joy catch in her chest.

‘‘Oh god, Roman, fuck, yes, yes, yes…’’

She lets go of his throat to grasp at his shoulders, her orgasm hitting her suddenly, his following seconds after, leaving them a panting mess right there, in the middle of the office of the CEO of the number one media conglomerate of the United States, possibly the world.

She is healthy, they are both alive and she will never take anything in life for granted for as long as she breathes.

She looks down at his body, cradled beautifully between her thighs, still fully clothed, her only in her heels and stockings.

She’s definitely had worse days.

* * *

She thinks Jonathan must know they had sex, even she can smell it on them. She finds she doesn’t much care, adjusts in her seat, the lack of panties under her skirt – situated in Roman’s jacket pocket - now getting to be a bit of a discomfort. Good thing they were almost home.

She notices Roman is pensive, staring out the window at passing traffic.

‘‘Rome?’’

He shakes his head lightly, as if shaking off a certain type of confusion, turns to her.

‘‘Teddy emailed me yesterday. About the photo. He got the IP address. I wasn’t going to say anything until we found out your test results.’’

She frowns at his reaction at that fact but then, something makes her remember, makes her rewind the goings on of the past few days and in an instant - she succeeds in locating the elusive Waldo.

‘‘Let me guess.’’, she says, taking a drink of his water, jaw almost painfully rigid. ‘‘It was a certain blonde haired attorney-at-law with a striking resemblance to yours truly?’’

His eyes widen.

‘‘How did—’’

‘‘Her choice of wardrobe gave her away. I guess it never clicked until just now. That’s what I saw but failed to observe in the reflection of the mirror mosaic.’’

She sees now the full extent of the hurt in his eyes at the thought that her own daughter would do that to them, and she is beyond enraged that Julia managed to ruin what was supposed to be a life affirming moment, a happy occasion.

‘‘I promise you, honey - me and her…we are going to be having words.’’

She slides a gentle hand down his cheek, kissing his worries away, the anger at her daughter growing with each passing second.

**EPILOGUE**

‘‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come.’’, Roman murmurs softly, busy buckling his safety belt, aware Gerri is shaking her head next to him before he’d even finished his sentence. The flight attendant finishes pouring their pre-flight drinks and moves away, Gerri laying her head on his shoulder.

‘‘She did this to you, Roman. To hurt you. I don’t know what on earth her thought process was, but this is getting resolved and it’s getting resolved now.’’

She had waited a week for most of her anger to simmer down and then decided the band aid needed

to come off and fast.

A thought occurs to him then and he twists in his seat to look at her head on.

‘‘They do know I’m coming, right?’’

Gerri ducks her head, reaches for her glass, takes a long sip.

‘‘Gerri, come on! I’m sure Laura will be all nice and dandy, but Julia will eat me alive. I don’t particularly want to meet the shark who has it in for me, especially if she has no idea I’m even gonna be there.’’

He settles deeper into his seat, shoulders rising up and around his ears. Gerri recognizes his body’s defense mechanism immediately, hand coming up to stroke down his forearm, quickly turning upwards to his cheek. He had let his beard grow out and she loved feeling the texture.

‘‘Honey, you have to be there. We will confront her and clear the air. But mostly, this needs to be done so she never gets a harebrained idea like that ever again. And maybe I will be able to forgive her for this, but I will never forget.’’, she huffs, settling back in her seat, reaching for her drink again, trying to calm herself. It wouldn’t do to get riled up before they had even taken off.

He senses her unease and reaches out, entwining their fingers, lifting the back of her hand for a kiss.

‘‘I just…you know I was never good at this. Where I come from we eat discomfort for every meal and sweep the inappropriate under the rug. This would have been just another day in the Roy household.’’

He is trying to play down just how much Julia’s actions affected him and Gerri refuses to let him.

‘‘Yes, I know, but do you really think that’s the best way to go about it? Pretend it never happened, hope that the next time she does it she is as clumsy as she was this time and we’ll just laugh it off? Roman, she put you through hell when she sent you that photo, I could see it in your eyes, she played with my life, our life! I still don’t understand how my own daughter could-’’, she cuts herself off, head lifting upwards to stop the tears from flowing.

Once she has calmed enough, she clears her throat.

‘‘We land. Hotel. Lunch with them. Confrontation. Then we pack up and go home. Okay?’’

He stares at her closely for a while, noting the tightness around her eyes, the tension in her shoulders that hasn’t let up for a whole week and knows she needs to do this.

‘‘Of course it’s okay.’’

He leans over, places a soft, slow kiss on the side of her neck, feels her unwind a little, leaning into him. He gets a blanket from the seat in front of him and lays it over the both of them. If they were going to be on high alert for the entire day, they needed to catch up on sleep.

‘‘Get some shut eye, the pilot said it should be a turbulence-free flight’’

She is already closing her eyes, nodding into him, his arm around her shoulders warm and secure.

‘‘Rome?’’

‘‘Yeah’’

‘‘I love you so much.’’

His smile almost hurts, it’s so wide, just like it always is when he hears her say those words.

‘‘I love you, too.’’, he replies, kisses her forehead. 

* * *

‘‘So, you wanna game this out? This whole us vs. her thing?’’

Gerri snorts, brushing her hair, fixing her earrings.

‘‘There’s no pre-gaming it with my little salmon.’’

Roman frowns but then gets it.

‘‘Sometimes swimming upstream is the best call. I mean, as I was growing up all I ever knew was how to piss off people. Look down the barrel of a gun, pee into the wind.’’

She giggles, as she always does when his turn of phrase goes sideways.

‘‘Off the edge of a cliff style?’’, she teases, grabbing hold of his tie as he hands it to her, ties it for him within seconds.

‘‘Something like that.’’

‘‘All that is well and good but there are exceptions. Like not having valid cause for that little nautical jaunt upwards. I wish I could explain to you just how disappointed I am with her.’’

‘‘Far be it from me to play devil’s advocate here, but…you said yourself that she worshipped Baird.’’

Gerri nods ruefully, grabbing her perfume from her carry-on.

‘‘Yeah, but I think it’s time to burst that bubble.’’

He says nothing further, sees her face close off, emotional walls up and guarded. He then simply steps into stride by her side, feels her loop her arm through his.

* * *

The restaurant Laura chose looks homey, warm and private. Roman is glad they’re seated in a booth as far removed from the other patrons as possible. He sits next to Gerri facing the doors, palms sweaty as he tries to wipe them against his pants but not be too obvious. As always, she notices.

‘‘Rome, calm down, Laura already loves you. As for Julia, well…I hope this whole situation will have hammered some sense into her after I’m done.’’, Gerri says, her voice unsteady as she scrolls through her inbox for something do to get rid of the nerves.

His head is bent towards hers, in the middle of trying to come up with something to calm her with, when a shadow falls across the tablecloth. He lifts his head and makes eye contact with a woman who is almost a replica of a young Gerri, hair wild and frizzy like he imagines she once wore it, a bright green suit on her ramrod straight form. In the moment he has to observe her he notices all this but then sees all the things that make her so very different than her mother. The cold stare, and how it clashes with the wide smile almost airbrushed onto her, ironically, salmon-colored lips. The vice-like grip she has on the strap of her bright orange purse like she just got stranded in a bad part of NY and not in an upscale restaurant in Chicago having lunch with her mother.

‘‘Mom! You didn’t tell me Roman was going to be here?’’, Julia exclaims, Gerri trying not to let her anger show immediately. The sweet, nauseatingly fake chime in her daughter’s voice is like a grenade going off right in front of her and she plasters an equally false smile onto her own lips, accepts the kiss placed on her cheek.

‘‘Yes, well, like I said, I had some work to do here, and then as it turned out, they needed the COO as well, so we thought, why not make it a family visit?’’, she says, putting an emphasis on the word family.

The remark strikes gold and Roman watches Julia’s façade shatter for a millisecond, but she recovers quickly.

‘‘Awesome! Have you guys ordered yet?’’

‘‘No, we’re waiting for Laura.’’

‘‘She should be here soon, she texted me she was having some parents over today for a few one-on-one sessions or something. She told me to get her a martini.’’

‘‘Ooh, takes after her mother there’’, Roman says and the line falls flat as Julia completely ignores him scrolling through her phone.

Gerri takes a deep breath, willing the strength into herself to deal with her petulant child. Wishes she had a gallon of vodka to drown in.

Roman gets the waiter’s attention for something to do, feeling way more out of depth than he usually does in such situations, which in and of itself is saying something.

Gerri orders a martini for herself and Laura, a scotch for Roman.

‘‘And I’ll have a Long Island Ice Tea, thank you’’, Julia says to the waiter, beaming up at him, Gerri noticing her check out his ass as he walks away.

‘‘So, Roman, you let mom order for you? How very…un-Roy of you.’’

Gerri goes to say something but Roman gets there first.

‘‘Well, seeing how I’m a Kellman now, it stands to reason that my wife, the person who knows me best, would always know what I’m in the mood for.’’

He smiles innocently at Julia, and then at Gerri before he continues. ’’Though, if we’re talking moods, I think a bourbon would have worked for both of us this time, too, right Gerr?’’

Gerri almost chokes on her water at the mention of their mutual favorite drink and the implied reference to the bedtime ‘‘routine’’ that sometimes comes with it. She sniggers into his shoulder, reaching up to place a light peck on his lips, turning to a clearly not amused Julia.

* * *

Laura finally arrives ten minutes later, and the conversation flows more easily then, her engaging in lively discussions with Roman about Molly, Fortnite and all other games he has on his repertoire in the game room, and Gerri hangs back, enjoying her meal, observing a tight-lipped Julia.

Towards the end of the meal, Gerri having become entirely fed up with her silence and dismissiveness, Laura moves to say her goodbyes and leave.

‘‘I have to go back to the school in a few hours, so I was thinking I should get back to my place and change at the very least, if not shower as well, one of the freshmen threw up on me – don’t ask - and I did change back in the teacher’s lounge, but I think some of it may have gotten on my hair.’’

‘‘Ew, is that what the smell is? Jesus, I thought it was Roman’s cologne.’’, Julia laughs, smirking Roman’s way, his eyes cast downwards, Gerri’s hand in his under the table gripping almost strong enough to bruise.

‘‘Gerr-’’, he tries to signal it doesn’t matter, but she gives his hand one more gentle squeeze before she lets go, ignores Julia and turns to a puzzled Laura.

‘‘You could always come back with us to the hotel and shower there, we can pick some clothes up for you on the way. Getting back to your place would eat up a lot of your time, wouldn’t it? Plus we could chat more then. Julia, you’ll come too, right?’’

Remnants of the child in Julia seem to be triggered by her mother’s no-nonsense tone of voice so she nods, acquiescing to Gerri’s plan.

In reality, this worked very well for what she had in mind, because if push came to shove – if she knew Julia, it would– this thing was about to get vocal, and she’d rather not offer herself up to any possible paps on a platter.

* * *

When Laura goes into the bathroom, Roman knows it’s going to start unraveling really quickly, so he plies the blonde mother-daughter duo with liquor, wincing when Gerri asks for whisky.

They are seated in the comfortable living room area, Roman ducking to the side, on his phone, knowing Gerri needed the few moments to think. Choose an approach, be subtle.

‘‘So, Julia. Anything you want to tell me?’’

Or maybe not as subtle as he’d thought. He switches off his phone, slides closer to Gerri, whose face remains carved in stone, and it’s amazing to him she is able to pull it off, knowing how many warring emotions currently lurk beneath the surface.

To her credit, Julia pulls off the surprised look well enough. Or maybe she is just dim-witted enough to think that her mother, the CEO of Waystar wouldn’t have the resources to find out who sent that photo. It was either that or she just deemed _him_ stupid enough to just up and leave, not talk to his own wife. He doesn’t know which option is more laughable.

‘‘What do you mean, mom?’’

Gerri reaches for her briefcase that is tucked next to the arm of the couch and pulls out an almost poster sized glossy print out of her and her lawyer, nearly slams it onto the coffee table. And still, faced with it, Julia doesn’t flinch, a hint of arrogance in her performance now, Roman sees it in the ‘innocent’ twitch of her eyebrow, the supposedly warm smile before she speaks.

‘‘Is that uncle Mark? Oh my god, I haven’t seen him in so long, he looks good! Is that a pap photo, you guys look so cute together!’’

And that’s about all Roman can take before he walks away and onto the balcony, drink in hand. He’ll either scream into the winter wind void or maybe throw himself off it, he hasn’t decided yet.

Gerri looks at him from the corner of his eye and he shakes his head at her worried look, signals he’ll be okay.

* * *

This was not the Julia she’d ever met, not the child she’d raised. She’d chosen the correct profession at least, the lies come to her so easily, so vividly real, imprinted on her rosy cheeks, the light airy tone of voice. Gerri would be proud if it weren’t so devious and wrong.

Laura comes out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a fluffy white towel, immediately zeroes in on Gerri’s face, Julia’s steadfast poker one.

‘‘Mom, is everything okay?’’

Gerri uses the question to regroup, changes tactic. She had hoped that Laura would be in the shower long enough for her to talk to Julia, but now realizes she can work this to her advantage. Because Laura’s disappointment was something Julia was always more afraid of than anything else in the world.

‘‘Sit down, sweetheart, come here, I want to show you a little something.’’

Julia flinches, watches Laura take a seat next to Gerri, peers at the photo.

‘‘It would appear that last time I was here and had drinks with uncle Mark, your sister took it upon herself to follow me like some sort of discount Columbo. Hence the lovely snapshot you see here.’’

She takes a deep breath.

‘‘Julia, what’s happening?’’

‘‘Mom has a weird theory she’s about to tell us about, hold on.’’, she smirks, confidence clearly wavering, arms folding in front of her.

Gerri turns to Laura, drops the act.

‘‘She followed me when I went to meet with Mark, took this photo and sent it to Roman from a fake email address.’’

Laura’s eyes widen in shock and Gerri watches her turn to her sister, Julia clenching her jaw tightly.

‘‘But what she failed to realize,’’, Gerri continues,’’ - and I honestly think we may have lacked in engendering you with some more common sense – is that I have the reach to find out all the information about anything sent to any of us at Waystar, at any point in time. Especially if that person is the CEO. Or in this case, the CEO’s husband and the current COO.’’

Julia snorts and Gerri cannot believe her ears.

‘‘I don’t get what the big deal is, you’re having an affair, aren’t you?’’

‘‘I’m sorry?’’, Gerri hisses out, face flushing with anger.

Julia gets up then, picks up the photo, waves it about in front of Gerri’s face like a red flag. She can see Roman coming back in and that is the only reason she doesn’t rip the thing from Julia's hands.

‘‘Well, come on mom, it’s so obvious, you invent this sudden trip to Chicago, drive a rental all week – of course, to avoid any gossip being spread by the driver – and you meet with uncle Mark being all lovey-dovey at a bar, getting boozed up. It’s okay, we all understand. Besides – ‘‘, she pauses here, gives Roman a disdainful look. ‘‘I think we all knew the little Roy heir charade wasn’t going to last long.’’

He isn’t aware of it until it happens and he sees Gerri rushing to his side, but when he looks down, the glass in his tight hold is shattered beyond repair, a large shard embedded firmly in the fleshy part of his palm near the root of his thumb, blood seeping onto his shirt, the floor and into Gerri’s hands at an alarming rate.

‘‘Oh my god! Laura, get the first aid kit, it’s bound to be around here somewhere.’’, Gerri instructs.

The two of them flank Roman on either side, Julia moving to stand in front of him, his lost gaze focusing a little bit better now, finds her hawk-like blues, so aggravatingly different than her mother’s, he sees it now. She genuinely hates him.

‘‘Oh come on mom, he’s not a baby, he can handle a little cut. Just like he can handle the truth, and not whatever little fairytale you spun for him to make him not believe what was so clear on this photo. I was doing you a favor!’’

Laura is focused on dabbing the blood away, but Gerri can see the anger flushing her cheeks, the minute enraged glare she sends her sister’s way.

Geri ignores Julia, looks at Roman, brushes a gentle hand through his hair.

‘‘Breathe Rome, it’s fine.’’

‘‘Jesus!!! He is a manchild, I’ll give him that, the mommy issues are apparent, but really, did you have to start fucking _him_ of all people? A man who could never come close to the kind of man dad was?’’

Roman tries, he tries really hard not to react, this was not his place, but something drives him forward as he manages to release the hold Laura and Gerri have on him. Luckily, most of the blood is gone, and he stalks over to Julia, getting in her face. He sees a brief flicker of terror in her face before she is able to hide it. Good.

‘‘I’ve been called plenty things in my day, was taught never to care. So I don’t, not much really. Water of a spoiled rich bastard’s back and all that. But let me make something Swarovski crystal clear. If you insult my wife like that ever again, if you make her hurt the way she has been hurting this past week ever again, I swear to you, you’ll have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your fucking miserable life.’’ He pauses here, chest constructing with a blinding rage, trying to focus, telegraph his meaning more precisely. 

’’Baird? You bet your ass I’m not him. And also, you sure talk a lot of shit about me, being a spoiled upper class brat yourself. Again, something we one hundred per cent have daddy dearest to thank for.’’

* * *

Gerri lets him. She lets him scare the life out of Julia, because it’s what she deserves. Because she doesn’t see an ounce of remorse, not an iota of regret on her face. Furthermore, the belief that her own mother would be capable of having an affair, and her being okay with it? She was most definitely Baird’s child.

‘‘Mom, are you going to let him talk to me like that?’’

Instead of replying, Gerri pulls him back gently towards the couch, makes him sit down, and he lets Laura finish putting the bandaid and gauze on what was luckily not that deep a wound.

She plants a light kiss on his cheek, palm sliding soothingly down his chest, and then gets up and walks into their room.

When she gets out, she has a folder in her hands. Roman knows immediately what it is, looks at her face, sees she is on the brink.

‘‘Thanks.’’, he murmurs to Laura who smiles so softly at him it makes him want to hug her. Instead, he gets up, stands next to Gerri.

‘‘Are you sure?’’, he asks, hand reaching out for hers. She nods, tears finally released from her eyes.

She wishes she wasn’t the kind of person who cried when angry, but realizes this was different. This was the onion type of anger, where layers keep unfolding backwards, uncovering all the other reasons for the tears. In this case, disappointment, a sense of loss for whoever she thought her daughter was, unlimited supplies of sorrow.

She turns to Laura, then Julia.

‘‘I was not, and would _never_ cheat on Roman. I would rather die than do that to him and that’s just something you’re going to have to get used to. I guess what hurts most in this whole story is that my own daughter in essence became one of the press, the scum of the earth Roman and I have had to hide for so long just to get an inkling of what it felt to have a normal life. And as for Baird and Roman being two sides of the spectrum? Yes they are, but yours is the skewed perspective, not mine, of that I can assure you.’’

She looks here to Laura, a sad smile on her face. The brunette smiles back encouragingly, getting up to stand next to Gerri, the three of them presenting a strong united front.

Gerri lets the folder of her scans and bloodwork drop onto the coffee table.

‘‘A health scare. Spoiler alert - I’m okay now, it was a false alarm, thankfully. _That_ is the real reason I was here. So thank you immensely, Julia, for making that already stressful week into even a bigger hell for the both of us than it already was.’’

Julia is mute, and Laura sits back down, unable to process much.

‘‘Read it, and read it again. Make sure I didn’t forge them, as I can tell you think I am capable of worse things.’’

She pauses, leans slightly against Roman and he places a gentle hand on her waist, the warmth of him seeping into her very core. She looks at his bandaged hand and feels the ebbing anger flow again. She addresses Julia one more time.

‘‘You and your sister have so far been the only persons I would go to extreme lengths to protect and even kill for. And if I tell you that for Roman I was able to stand up to Logan Roy of all people, you’ll know he is the third person on that list now, has been for a long time. Trust me when I say that telling you off like the brat that you apparently are will be no trouble whatsoever. Get your father off the pedestal you put him on. Sorry to tell you, but as much of a good parent he may have been to you two, that was just how much of a lousy husband he was to me. Unfortunately, I have your sister who can vouch for me on that, if you ever want to hear more.’’

She wipes the tears off her cheeks, one more thing on her mind.

‘‘I never knew me being unbelievably happy for once in my life would make my own child this spiteful.’’, she finishes.

’’Come on, Rome, we need to pack. You two let yourselves out when you’re ready.’’

* * *

A soft knock on their bedroom door startles Gerri, and Roman brushes a gentle hand across her forearm to calm her nerves, goes to answer it.

Laura enters, beelines towards Gerri, and she suddenly has an armful of her firstborn, the brunette’s tears soaking through her shirt.

‘‘Hey, honey, it’s okay, I’m okay. It was a false alarm, I’m okay’’, Gerri croons softly into the top of her child’s head, sitting on the bed, Laura kneeling on the floor in front of her, Roman sitting next to her, slightly at odds with what to do.

Laura looks up then, at Roman, and he realizes how, though she is physically so much unlike her mother, her facial expressions are Gerri Kellman’s to a tee.

The alertness of her red-rimmed eyes combined with a scrunch of her nose and eyebrows shooting up to her hairline, the ever so familiar sight of her makes Roman smile a little. What Julia lacked in compassion and warmth, at least in this entire situation, Laura more than made up for it with her kindness and love for her mother.

‘‘I told Julia to leave. She is as distraught as I am, but…she shouldn’t get to speak to you now, and she knows it. She knows that what she did was wrong. Mom, I’m so sorry. Roman, I-’’

Gerri shushes her, a gentle hand guiding her from the floor to the bed, Laura then seated to her left, Roman on her right.

‘‘There is nothing you need to apologize for, sweetie. As for Julia, well, I’m sure that after she mulls over what happened she’ll realize a few things, hopefully.’’

Gerri can’t unleash the full extent of her disappointment at poor Laura, can’t let her know just how deep the wound inflicted really is.

Roman leans forward, catches Laura’s eye.

‘‘Listen, if anyone knows anything about fucked up family dynamics and missteps of siblings, it’s me.’’, he says, taking Gerri’s hand in his, thumb rubbing warm circles onto her soft skin.

‘‘All this thing needs is time. Like…a puzzle you’re doing, that keeps fucking driving you crazy. Then you leave it for a while, and all of a sudden the pieces cascade into place immediately.’’

Gerri’s breath hitches in the back of her throat, and a deep warmth spreads through her chest at Roman’s words. He managed to express so well what she was failing to.

‘‘Roman’s right. When you two visit for Christmas, then Julia can talk to me. It’s in a few weeks, anyway, not like it’s a year. So, until then, your sister can take the time and really think about what she wants to say to me, and to Roman. Okay?’’

Being rational and calm hurts Gerri, it is physically painful, because all she wants to do is scream at the top of her lungs, the ache and sorrow in her gut a swirling ball of orange-hued mist…but Laura’s sweet face and Roman’s touch seem to make it dissolve around the edges. Thinking of Molly makes it fizzle out further, and then images of Karolina, of Tabitha and Jessie, their infectious smiles and the tiny bump that is Gerri and Roman’s godchild. The support system she never had before now helps quell the negative, focus on the love she is able to partake in, surrounding her from all over.

Laura presses a cherry-scented kiss on her cheek and hugs her for a long minute. Gerri could weep at the scent, feels herself transported back in time when all Laura wanted had to be cherry–related, whether it was ice cream, a pencil case with the fruit on them or her sheets. Her sweet baby.

‘‘I have to go, I’m gonna be late. But we’ll Facetime tomorrow, okay?’’

‘‘Okay, sweetie.’’

Laura turns to Roman then.

‘‘Dad.’’, she nods solemnly, a teasing grin on her face and Roman giggles.

‘‘Daughter.’’, he responds, and she goes in for a hug he wasn’t expecting but that makes him want to cry.

Gerri and Roman stay rooted to the spot as they listen to Laura’s departure, and when the door shuts after her Gerri exhales.

‘‘She likes you very much.’’, she says.

Roman grins, proud of himself.

‘‘I think she does. One out of two ain’t bad, right?’’

Gerri’s smile drops slightly and he could kick himself.

‘‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-’’, he stutters out, but Gerri stops him, a finger to his lips.

‘‘The only person who needs to be sorry is Julia, honey, okay? So, no apologizing. Now let’s finish packing. I really miss Molly, and the sooner we get to the jet, that much closer to her we’ll be.’’

He nods, moves in for a kiss that she soon deepens, his arms going around her waist, pushing her backwards into the sheets.

She giggles into his lips, and he traces them across her warm cheeks, turning slightly to whisper in her ear.

‘‘Madam CEO?’’

‘‘I don’t think she’s available, can I take a message?’’, Gerri shoots back, smiling into his shoulder then.

‘‘Ask her how she would feel if herself and the COO became members of, let me just check my notes…ah yes, the Mile High Club, I believe it’s called.’’

Gerri fights hard not to burst out laughing, instead presses her lips against his pulse point, gives it a brief, feather light lick for good measure, delights in his subdued moan.

‘‘I just texted madam CEO. She says…’’, she draws out the moment, hands clutching his waist, migrating lower, ‘‘that she would very much like that.’’

He backs away slightly, cups her face, places one more gentle kiss on her lips, eyes coal-black with the promise of what’s to come, and they move away from each other and continue packing.

Gerri bites her lip, mind reeling, as she watches him look for his charger, changing out of his shirt at the same time, her heart once again settling quietly in its rightful spot within her ribcage.

There was a rough thunderstorm, she recognizes, and it left a house and some barns shattered here and there, but now…now is the proverbial time to rebuild.

Their world keeps spinning.

**Author's Note:**

> There it is, guys! thanks for sticking with it! :)
> 
> P.S. - title is from the ethereal, wonderful song that literally held my hand through the first stages of writing this fic - Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel


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